Mathews should open with Thirimanne or Karunarathne. Chandimal should be the ideal #6 with his ultra aggressive aproach. If Mathews cannot survive NZ seam attack with new ball on Galle pitch, forget about facing Aussies at Bellerive Oval.

Member of the Sanga fan club. (Ugh! it took me so long to become a real fan of his)

It's a bit of a catch 22 really. Quick bowler friendly conditions provide us with a big advantage but they also give the Sri Lankan seamers a bit of a leg up, and their seam bowling stocks are probably the only area we can exploit.

A flat pitch gives their batsmen a huge advantage but it also puts massive pressure on their spinners because it gives our batsmen a bit of a leg up.

If it's a spinners pitch, we're up against it, especially since we'll try to beat Sri Lanka at their own game and play two spinners against batsmen who love spin at the expense of a pacer.

Anyway, New Zealand to win by an innings. 600 declared with Taylor 300* (250) and the pacemen to rip Sri Lanka a new one.

For a realistic prediction, invert mine.

Originally Posted by Bahnz

I need u like Henry Nicholls needs batting school
He was terrible in that series
I need u like Ross Taylor needed to be fit
He's way better than Henry Nicholls
And now all I can think about is your smile
and that ****** test series too
Losing to Australia sucked and I miss you

Haha when I was looking back through scorecards I found this test and while the last innings frustrates me to this day, there were a few odd happenings in this test.

-our top three scored 92 runs in the first dig, 63 out of 114 in the second, which is pretty embarrassing for England when you look at the players involved. Good domestic cricketers, but they should have struggled a bit more than they did against that attack
-Vettori took wickets (1st innings only of course)
-James Marshall was our second highest scorer in the 2nd dig, which is a first
-Panesar went from zero to hero. WAC.

Haha when I was looking back through scorecards I found this test and while the last innings frustrates me to this day, there were a few odd happenings in this test.

-our top three scored 92 runs in the first dig, 63 out of 114 in the second, which is pretty embarrassing for England when you look at the players involved. Good domestic cricketers, but they should have struggled a bit more than they did against that attack
-Vettori took wickets (1st innings only of course)
-James Marshall was our second highest scorer, which is a first
-Panesar went from zero to hero. WAC.

Haha when I was looking back through scorecards I found this test and while the last innings frustrates me to this day, there were a few odd happenings in this test.

-our top three scored 92 runs in the first dig, 63 out of 114 in the second, which is pretty embarrassing for England when you look at the players involved. Good domestic cricketers, but they should have struggled a bit more than they did against that attack
-Vettori took wickets (1st innings only of course)
-James Marshall was our second highest scorer, which is a first
-Panesar went from zero to hero. WAC.

Will never forget listening to Taylor's innings as commentated by Henry Blofeld at some god awful hour of the morning.

One of the most spectacular examples of how disappointing Vettori has been as a test match bowler since 2000 onwards. He also cocked things up with his batting, by not sliding his bat during the 1st innings, and getting run-out. A typical niggly 50 from him would've pushed us up to 420 odd, which would've been enough to enforce the follow-on.

Ugh.

Still, enjoy the memories of O'Brilliant charging like a demon into a Manchester gale.

Hope Rossco's been practising his coin-flips. Do not want to be batting last on a wearing SL pitch.

I dunno, if there's some green on the wicket, it might be a chance to bowl them out cheaply in the first innings. Lets be honest, regardless of who's batting last Sri Lanka is going to have a huge edge over us in the last 2 days of the test. Our best bet might be to try and take advantage of any support for the seamers and then make the most of the batting conditions on days 2 and 3. Of course, this assumes that there actually is some life in the surface on day one.